Annie, Are You Okay?
by Nicholas Lucien
Summary: Natalie learns something more about Nick's past. This story was inspired by L'Inconnue de la Seine (The Unknown Woman of the Seine), who became the face used for the Resusci Anne, or CPR Annie, training manikin. The title comes from the phrase taught during the training. I do not own these characters and is not intended to infringe upon any copyright owners. No profit is made.


Nick leaned up against the metal autopsy table in the center of the tiled room. He watched Natalie place a few papers in a folder, then add that one to the stack on her desk. She had seemed preoccupied and slightly distant, more than just the weariness experienced at the end of a long shift. Nick had begun to think her behavior might have something to do with him. "Nat," he tentatively asked, "is something wrong?"

Natalie quickly looked up at Nick, then resumed organizing her files on the desk. "Why would you think that?"

"Tough shift?" he hopefully offered.

"No more than usual."

Nick frowned slightly, now wholly convinced this did have something to do with him. "Did I do something wrong?"

Natalie flopped the last folder down onto the stack with an audible slap. "Why would you think that?"

Nick pushed off from the table and turned to stare at the posters hanging on the wall - anything than face Nat.

"Nick?"

He closed his eyes. Somehow, Nat must have found out he had stopped drinking the last protein shake batch she had made for him. Nick scrambled to figure out when she might have learned this, and therefore, how long she had known. She had visited the loft right before sundown, he remembered, so she probably had snuck a peek into the fridge.

"Nick, I need to understand what I saw tonight." Natalie watched Nick slowly turn his slate-blue eyes towards her, then drop his gaze. "Why am I helping you if you don't stop putting that type of behavior behind you."

"I'm sorry, Nat."

Natalie walked around her desk and quickly traversed the few feet to stand next to him. "But why, Nick? Why? What was so dangerous that you felt you had to do that?"

Nick squirmed under her gaze. "You don't understand. You can't taste what I can-"

"Taste?" Natalie incredulously interrupted. "What does taste have to do-"

"And so you don't know how bad those shakes actually are," Nick continued as if Nat hadn't spoken. "I'm sorry I just couldn't drink the series anymore."

"Wait, what?" Natalie stiffened and raised her hand in a stopping motion. "What do you mean you haven't been drinking what I gave you?"

Nick looked at her in surprise. "Aren't you talking about that new supplement?"

Natalie shook her head. "No."

He furrowed his brow in irritation. Nick couldn't think what could have actually upset Nat since he had guessed wrong about the shakes being the culprit. "Then what are you talking about?"

"I'll come back to the protein shakes later. What I was talking about was what I saw you do this evening at work."

"What?" Nick bewilderedly asked.

"You hypnotized people."

"I didn't hypnotize any suspects."

"I'm not talking about suspects. I'm talking about the training class you were in tonight." Natalie knew when Nick realized what she was referring to, and his reaction was one she was used to. "You said," she began, while following him when he tried to walk away from her, "you wanted to act more human. That means no more hypnotizing."

Nick stopped and turned around. "I can't let mortals remember seeing a vampire. The Enforcers would kill them."

Natalie raised an eyebrow. "Is that why you had to hypnotize the instructor and the others?"

"No," Nick reluctantly uttered.

"Then, why?" Natalie compassionately asked. She watched as Nick backed away from her, going towards the nearest corner of the room. Nick kept his eyes averted and mumbled a short phrase she couldn't hear. "Nick, I can't-"

"I couldn't save her," Nick repeated. He looked at Nat. "I couldn't."

Worried, she moved slightly closer to him. "Nick, she's a medical manikin," Natalie reminded him, "for training and practice. CPR Annie-"

"Her name wasn't Annie. Her name was Clémence."

Natalie drew in a sharp intake of air in surprise. She knew the manikin had been given a female's face, modeled after a death mask cast from an unidentified woman pulled from a river long ago. For Nick to know her name …. "You knew her."

Nick tersely nodded while the memories of the past broke through. "I couldn't save her."

"Did she slip and fall into the river? Was she too far away for you to help?"

"No," Nick replied as he turned away. "She was right next to me. I was the one who cast her into the Seine."

Natalie could tell from the way Nick clenched his jaw that he was remembering, letting the painful memories overwhelm him. She couldn't stop them, but she wouldn't let him endure them alone. "Tell me, Nick. What happened?" She reached out to touch his arm. "You need to talk about this."

"I couldn't protect her." Nick took a ragged breath. "I killed her. I didn't mean to, but it happened anyway."

Natalie let her arm drop and encircled his trembling hand, though he immediately pulled away from her. 

"LaCroix had needed to leave London to recuperate and heal from his encounter with the Barber - Jack. I was to have left for America that very night," Nick stated as he moved away from Nat. "Maybe I should have. But I couldn't leave Janette, so I stayed to help. She took us all to Paris. LaCroix needed … blood. Janette's and mine." Nick glanced back at Nat before once again turning away. "Such sharing strengthens our bonds and strengthens the vampire's tendencies."

"It was harder to control the urges," Natalie guessed while returning to his side.

Nick tensely nodded. "I thought I could, but I was wrong." He paused, recalling how beautiful Clémence had looked the first time he saw her on a stroll down the Boulevard St Germain in the spring of 1889. He would see her more times the following nights. Eventually, she approached him, and soon after, they would stroll together along the park paths and the river. "With her, being in Paris under those circumstances, became bearable. I loved her, and somehow, she loved me."

Natalie knew how Nick blamed himself unrelentingly for his actions, holding onto the guilt and seeing no difference between deliberate choices and actions beyond his control. "I was an accident, Nick. It wasn't your choice."

"That doesn't change the fact that I murdered her. She trusted me," Nick rumbled. "She said I was her life. Then I took that life from her." He sank down against the metal countertop. "All she had wanted was a kiss. I thought I could control myself enough for that, but I was wrong." Clémence's visage, always precise in his memories, was of joy when he said he would agree to give a kiss. Standing on a bridge over the Seine, her broad smile was the last thing he remembered before closing his eyes and leaning over her. "When it was over, she lay limp in my arms, a smile still on her face."

Nick was silent for a while, and Natalie was unsure if she should say something or not. She knew anything could easily push him away. Eventually, he turned imploring eyes onto her.

"She will never know how sorry I was, nor how much I would regret what I did next."

"The river?"

Nick bit his lip while shaking his head. "I saw the fang marks on her neck and couldn't bear to have such wounds marring her. I used my blood to heal them, so she was flawless again. Then I let her go into the river below. When she was found, the authorities determined her death was a suicide. No one would ever admit to such an act occurring within their family, so she was left unclaimed. I took even that from her, the right to be buried with her family. She was forgotten."

"But she wasn't forgotten. Someone made the mask of her."

"She couldn't stay in the Exhibition Room of the Paris Morgue forever, and they eventually buried her in a pauper's grave. They made the mask so someone could still identify her, but no one came forward. Copies were made of the mask, and then even more. I saw her face everywhere – in homes, in artist's studios, paintings, and books. A reminder to me." Nick took a deep breath. "And then they would cast her face for a manikin used to help save lives."

Natalie had managed to get close to Nick again and reached out to hold his hand. This time he did not pull away from her contact.

"How can I," Nick softly confessed, "touch those lips again to practice saving her life, when that very action was the one that resulted in the taking of her life?"

Natalie understood now what she had observed. "So, you hypnotized them into thinking you had done the training." Then Nick pulled away from her and headed towards to exit. "Nick?" she called out to him, baffled by his abrupt departure. "Nick, are you okay?"

Nick pulled the sunglasses from his inner jacket pocket and put them on. "Sun's coming up." He left the morgue and drove back to the loft. Once inside, he headed straight to the refrigerator. Renewed with the reminder of why he didn't want to be a vampire anymore, he reached for the protein shake he had been ignoring for days.


End file.
